V. I. Lenin

KOMMUNISMUS

Journal of the Communist International

Written:12 June, 1920First Published:Published in June, 1920; Published according to the manuscript and checked against the text of the proof-sheet, as emended by V. I. LeninSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 31, pages 165-167Translated:Julius KatzerTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

This excellent journal, which is published in
    Vienna under the above title, contains a great deal of highly
    interesting material on the growth of the communist movement in
    Austria, Poland and other countries, together with a chronicle of
    the international movement, and articles on Hungary and Germany,
    on general tasks and tactics, etc. A shortcoming that strikes the
    eye even at a cursory examination cannot, however, be
    disregarded—the indubitable symptoms of the “infantile
    disorder of Left-wing Communism” that has affected the
    journal, a subject on which I have written a short pamphlet that
    has just appeared in Petrograd.

The excellent journalKommunismasreveals three
    symptoms of this malady, which I would like at once to deal with
    briefly. No. 6 (March 4, 1920) contains an article byComrade
    G.L.entitled “On the Question of
    Parliamentarianism”, which the editors designate as
    controversial, and from whichComrade
    B. K., the author of an article entitled “On the
    Question of the Parliamentary Boycott” (No. 18, May 8,
    1920), directly dissociates himself (fortunately), i.e., declares
    that he is in disagreement with it.

G. L.’s article is very Left-wing, and very poor. Its
    Marxism is purely verbal; its distinction between
    “defensive” and “offensive” tactics is
    artificial; it gives no concrete analysis of precise and definite
    historical situations; it takes no account of what is most
    essential (the need to take over and to learn to take over, all
    fields of work and all institutions in which the bourgeoisie
    exerts its influence over the masses, etc.).

No. 14 (April 17, 1920), carries an article by Comrade B. K.,
    entitled “The Events in Germany", in which he criticises a
    statement made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
    Germany on March 21, 1920, which statement I too criticised in the
    pamphlet mentioned above. However, our criticisms differ radically
    in character. Comrade B. K. criticises on the basis of quotations
    from Marx, which refer to a situation unlike the present one; he
    wholly rejects the tactics of the German Communist Party’s
    Central Committee and absolutely evades what is most important,
    that which constitutes the very gist, the living soul, of
    Marxism-a concrete analysis of a concrete situation. Since most of
    the urban workers have abandoned the Scheidemannites for the
    Kautskyites, and since, within the Kautskian party (a party
    “independent” of correct revolutionary tactics) they
    are continuing to abandon its Right wing in favour of the Left,
    i.e., in fact, of communism-since that is the case, is it
    permissible to take no account of the transitional and compromise
    measures to be adopted with regard to suchworkers?Is it
    permissible to disregard and to gloss over the experience of the
    Bolsheviks, who, in April and May 1917, pursued what was in fact a
    policy of compromise, when they declared that the Provisional
    Government (Lvov, Milyukov, Kerensky and the rest) could not be
    overthrown at once, since in the Soviets, they still had the
    backing of the workers and it was first of all necessary to bring
    about achange in viewsin the majority, or a
    considerable part, of those workers?

I consider that impermissible.

Lastly, Comrade B. K. ’s article inKommunisnutsNo. 18, which I have mentioned, very vividly, strikingly and
    effectively reveals his error in sympathising with the tactics of
    boycotting parliaments in present-day Europe. When the author
    dissociates himself from the “syndicalist boycott” and
    the “passive” boycott, but at the same time invents a
    special kind of “active” (Au, how “Left”!
    ...) boycott, the full extent of the errors in his argument is
    brought out very strikingly.

“An active boycott,” the author writes,
    “means that the Communist Party does not confine itself to
    disseminating the slogan advocating non-participation in
    elections, but, in the interests of the boycott, engages in
    revolutionary agitation just as extensively as f it wore
    participating in the elections and as if its agitation and action
    were designed to secure the greatest possible number of
    proletarian votes.” (P. 552).

This is a gem. This demolishes the anti-parliamentarians better
    than any criticism could. An “active” boycott is
    devised “as though” we were participating in
    elections!! The mass of unenlightened and semi-enlightened workers
    and peasants take a serious part in elections, for they still
    entertain bourgeois-democratic prejudices, are still under the
    sway of those prejudices. And instead of helping the unenlightened
    (although at times “highly-cultured”) petty bourgeois
    to get rid of their prejudices by their own experience, we are to
    hold aloof from taking part in parliaments and to amuse ourselvesby inventingtactics free of all commonplace and
    bourgeois contamination!!

Bravo, bravo, Comrade B. K.! By your defence of
    antiparliamentarianism you will help us to destroy this folly much
    sooner than I can through my criticism.